Ephemera and Error

I’m in the beginning stages of a new project. A coworker of mine noticed one of our Annual Reports had a printing error on it where some random text was printed on the cover. This wasn’t a spelling or grammar or design error, it was a mishap during the printing stage. This reminded me that I’ve saved a special business card from a few years ago.

Somehow another person’s order printed on top of mine for one card in the set. I placed a mistake-free card on top for comparison.

This is awesome to me. Maybe most people would dismiss it and throw it out but I cherish mistakes and oddities like this. It’s one-of-a-kind and more valuable. It’s like the printing process itself is cast into the foreground; glitch art for printed material.

Austin Kleon‘s books, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work are my current reads and they’re inspiring me to nurture this interest and share my process of discovery.

I want to explore, collect, and share the intersection of ephemera (tickets, business cards, trading cards, stickers) and errors. I have no fucking clue where this will lead but that’s part of the fun.

The last kind of project I did like this involved making an online manual for hand gestures. It consumed most of my senior year of college but it was a blast for the most part.

Check out Austin Kleon’s books if your life needs a creative uppercut: